


The Story Of My Life

by LinguistLove_24



Category: The Big C (TV)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:19:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinguistLove_24/pseuds/LinguistLove_24
Summary: Set five years post 4x08.Inspired by some of the pool scenes/death scenes/visions, and one of the ending scenes where Cathy says to her therapist "now you know the story of my life" and crosses through the door over the bridge. Title came from Cathy's line in that scene, obviously.





	

**Author's Note:**

> References to some scenes/things that happened in the show, the rest is fiction and didn't actually happen. As summary states, five years post finale.

**The Story of My Life**

 

 

** Spring 2018 **

 

Twenty one year old Adam Jamison barrelled through the door of the operating theatre, blue scrubs covering his street clothes from head to foot, smile spread across his face exposing his flawless set of pearly whites and reaching all the way to his eyes. After his mother died, he'd wondered for a while if he'd ever smile again, tried and failed to talk his brain into doing so every once in a while – he knew she'd want him to – but everything after her departure had proven more difficult than he could have anticipated and nothing had come easily. Not moving on, not even the smallest act of smiling, until now.

 

 

“Well, what is it?” Andrea stood stock still, eyes lit up in a mixture of excitement and anticipation. There was no span of time or distance that would see her forgetting Adam Jamison, nor the second family that had so graciously taken her in. A love for the hustle and bustle of New York City and a passion for fashion weren't even obstacle or excuse big enough to stand in the way of missing this milestone in her friend's life.

 

 

“Little girl,” he responded happily. The voice that escaped him didn't sound like his own, and he attempted to clear the thickness that had manifested itself in his throat as a hand made its way up to his face, slender fingers hastily wiping salty droplets.

 

 

“I _knew_ it.” Andrea punched him good naturedly on the shoulder just as his father, who had risen from the chair he was situated in, sidled over and clapped him on the back.

 

 

“She _was_ the first one to call it,” Paul laughed lightly. “Looks like you owe her five bucks.”

 

 

“Damn it,” Adam snickered as his eyes turned to slits and he looked in the direction of his dark skinned friend. “I forgot about that.”

 

 

“You would,” she said dryly as pallid tongue played through teeth. “Sucker.”

 

 

“Are you doing so terribly in the fashion industry that my five bucks will make a difference?” Adam retorted.

 

 

“No, but that doesn't mean I don't want it. A bet is a bet, and I did win.”

 

 

They looked at each other in mock disgust before Paul broke the silence and turned attention back to the joyous occasion at hand.

 

 

“How's Elise?” he asked of his son's girlfriend whom he assumed was still on the operating table.

 

 

“Both her and the baby are getting cleaned up and checked over before they move them to a room,” Adam told him in response, noticing the worry lines on his face become slightly less prominent at the admission. “They're fine.”

 

 

“The baby is healthy?” Paul questioned again, needing reassurance.

 

 

“Perfectly. Eight pounds ten ounces of pink, screaming, wailing health.”

 

 

“Jesus,” Andrea piped up. “That's more than I weighed when I was born.”

 

 

“Does she have a name?” Sean's voice, hoarse and soft as he spoke up, was still loud enough to pierce through Adam's dwindling laughter. Still situated in his own chair, he hadn't bothered to raise up off it. All three of them looked toward him, feeling badly they'd momentarily forgotten he was there. Cathy's death had affected each of them deeply, in ways that weren't necessarily always akin to one another, but they all felt Sean had changed the most in the months and years since.

 

 

Typical anti establishment, pro environment outbursts were less frequent. As he had done before his sister's death, he'd sometimes wander off for weeks at a time, though he didn't do it as much as he had in the beginning stages of his grief. Retreating into himself had become normal, expected behaviour and though they worried for him, each knew that he had to deal in his own way and nobody could make him into the person he used to be again.

 

 

“Yes,” Adam said, smiling, looking at each of them in turn as they returned the gesture to varying degrees. “She does.”

 

 

“Who chose it?” Andrea asked him.

 

 

“Elise and I both picked it together,” he told her.

 

 

“What is it?” Paul looked at him expectantly, as if to coax the information from his son's lips more quickly.

 

 

“Chloe Catherine Jamison-Johnston.” His eyes lit up the most as he enunciated the middle name, his Mum's face flitting across his mind.

 

 

“You have no idea how happy that would've made Mum, Adam. She would have been so proud right now.”

 

 

“I know Dad,” he told him softly. “I do.”

 

 

“Enough of this sappy shit,” Andrea joked. “Can we see her?”

 

 

“Patience, Auntie Andrea,” Adam winked at her. “It's a virtue.”

 

 

“I'm still not used to that title,” she told him playfully. “Or the fact that you have a kid at all.”

 

 

“Hasn't sunken in for me yet either,” he said. Elise's pregnancy had been unexpected, but in the end something they'd both wanted. Both had worked diligently to tie up loose ends, finish their respective college degrees, and would be bringing their child into an imperfect, albeit comfortable and stable life. “We _could_ just have her call you Ababu,” he chortled as she flipped him the bird.

 

 

“Bitch, you'd better not!” It had come out louder and more emphatically than intended, Adam laughing even harder when people turned in their seats to look questioningly at them.

 

 

**///**

**Spring 2018,**  
 **Heaven – Wherever That Is And Where Time Is Irrelevant**

 

 

“Did you see her?” Cathy was sitting poolside, watching Marlene bob up and down in the aquamarine tinted water as she rocked to and fro in a much-more-comfortable-than-it-looked wooden chair, free of stress, pain and all other things people had told her didn't exist once you got to the other side. Thomas being his usually lazy self,(with many less wrinkles and a pitiful look that ceased to be so deeply etched into the fur of his face, convincing Cathy that even animals let go of their stresses when they crossed over) lay stretched contentedly over her feet.

 

 

“Of course I did,” Marlene piped up, light sarcasm dripping off her words just as easily as it had done whilst she had lived. “We see everyone we love all the time, sometimes all at once.”

 

 

“I know that.” Moving her lower extremities, the blonde coaxed the hound (who'd almost fallen asleep) off her feet. He watched tentatively as his second owner made to dive into the pool, moved as if to follow but thought better of the notion at the last possible second.

 

 

“Wimp,” Marlene taunted him, splashing cool liquid in his direction and eliciting a yelp when it made contact with his nose. “She's beautiful,” she said absent-mindedly, almost as an afterthought.

 

 

“What?” Cathy floated leisurely along the surface on her back, feeling weightless and buoyant as she looked at her elder friend in confusion.

 

 

“Your granddaughter,” she responded with a typical and sarcastic eye roll. “Pretty little thing.”

 

 

“Oh.” A chuckle escaped the younger woman's tiny frame as she silently chastised herself for not following the conversation. “Yeah, she is. I only wish I'd gotten more time so I could know her.”

 

 

“You'll know her,” Marlene assured, loving sparkle reserved only for those whom she truly cared and extended only when the world wasn't looking on (which was always, in heaven, so used much more frequently) dancing in her eyes. “She may not know you the way you want, but you can keep close watch and have a pretty good view of her up here.”

 

 

“I hope Adam tells her about me. About everything. The story of my life, not just how it ended.”

 

 

“I'm sure he will.” Marlene swam closer, flipped herself into a position identical to Cathy's and began the backstroke. They lay side by side and silent for a while, looking up into the skies which they now appreciated were as limitless as their time with one another. As much as Cathy had grappled on and off with dying, she wondered often now why she'd been so fearful. Some days were hard looking down on Paul, Adam, Andrea and Sean and knowing she couldn't be there - that they probably didn't see her as much as she saw them – others she was at peace knowing she'd see them all again, that their time would turn limitless, existence painless once that exact moment came.

 

 

“What makes you say so?” Cathy questioned her, water making a rippling sound as she turned her face sideways to look into closed eyes.

 

 

“He was always a good kid, despite everything,” the older woman said easily. “Good kids make good parents. Didn't have too bad an example in the end, either.”

 

 

“Thank you.” The blonde watched the corner of her friend's mouth lift into a smile and returned it gratefully.

 

 

**///**

** Spring 2018, Nursery – Jamison-Johnston Household **

 

“I'm sad you've got to leave for New York tomorrow,” Adam spoke up softly from the door jamb as he watched Andrea ogle over his infant daughter situated in the crook of a dark, oversized arm. “You've been an incredible help, I know Elise appreciates it. I didn't realise what a mother-fucker caesarean recovery would prove to be.”

 

 

“The joys of childbirth,” she quipped dryly as she made eye contact. “Pain during delivery or more pain afterwards. Neither are stellar choices, which is why I'm never having children.”

 

 

“That'll change,” Adam laughed. “Once you've had a career for a while you'll slow down, meet someone, want to lay down some roots somewhere.”

 

 

“Fuck that.” Andrea looked down into Chloe's big, bright eyes and bit her bottom lip. “Auntie is a bad example,” she said as she touched the tip of her nose. “Never repeat that word.”

 

 

“Watch it be her first one.” Pushing from the doorway, he raised the dimmer switch and brightened the room slightly before taking tentative steps closer. “In all seriousness, though, you _will_ meet someone,” he said as he crouched down beside the rocking chair.

 

 

“I don't know if I want to, not after the Myk debacle.”

 

 

“That was years ago, Andrea.”

 

 

“Doesn't mean I've forgotten it. You may not understand, but it's hard for girls like me to meet guys that want us for the right reasons.”

 

 

“Maybe,” Adam conceded. “Doesn't mean they don't exist. Not every guy is the same. They won't all do what Myk did to you, you've just not met the right ones.”

 

 

“Well, I'm not goin' looking for 'em,” she said. “I've got more important things to do.”

 

 

“I know. Give it a few years and they'll come to you. We take longer to mature than your kind.”

 

 

“No shit,” Andrea chuckled, looking into Chloe's eyes afresh with an apologetic look over her profanity. “When did you get to be so wise?”

 

 

“Death, your whole world being shaken up and inside out, both for the worse and for the better, it all does that to you.”

 

 

She nodded in understanding. Cathy Jamison had gone from a summer school teacher she had loathed to a friend, to nearly a surrogate mother. They were not blood family, but Andrea had always been convinced blood lineage only held as much weight as all parties made effort to put into it. Missing her was something she'd never stop doing, the hole in her heart would see itself filled rather than mended.

 

 

“You're pretty dope, Adam,” she said affectionately. “I mean, you always were, when you weren't being a brat, but now you're like, double dope.”

 

 

He chuckled. “Thanks, weirdo. You're not so bad yourself.”

 

 

“I should get some sleep.” A yawn escaped her as if to echo her sentiment, and she rose to place the baby atop the crib's mattress. Curious eyes looked up and flitted across older face once more before falling easily closed.

 

 

“Me too,” Adam said to his friend's back, making to leave from the room but halting in the doorway and turning on a heel. “Oh, I have something for you.”

 

 

“What, why? Being Auntie to your pretty little child wasn't gift enough?”

 

 

“Here,” he laughed, holding out a hand. Andrea extended hers with palm facing upward and squinted in effort to make out the lump Adam had just placed in its middle in the room's less than stellar light.

 

 

“Keys?” she questioned, raising her voice an octave and brow cocking in confusion.

 

 

“To the car,” he explained. “Mum's car.”

 

 

“The one she _gave_ you? Adam, are you on _drugs_? I can't take that.”

 

 

“Yes you can,” he countered easily. “We've just had a baby, bought an SUV before she got here. Much more practical. I'll never drive it. Besides, Mum gave me a ton of other stuff. Some of it is still unopened in the storage locker, and I've got all the memories. Fashion designers need to ride in style.”

 

 

“Are you sure?” Her mouth hung agape for a moment, opened and closed thrice over in stunned gratitude.

 

 

“Positive.”

 

 

“Well if you insist.” Andrea let her fingers slide over the keys' cool ridges, not knowing what to say. “Thank you.”

 

 

“You're welcome.” Making to exit the room anew, he doubled back again when he heard his name.

 

 

“Hey, Adam?”

 

 

“Yeah?”

 

 

“I take that back,” she said. “You're triple dope.”

 

 

The laughter coming from deep within was visible in his eyes, danced off his pupils. “Thanks for being such a huge part of the story of my life.”

 

 

“Thanks for having me,” Andrea winked as she watched him walk away.

 

 


End file.
